My father never had work-life balance. When I was a kid, my father was never home. To me it seemed that he didn’t have time for me or the family and his business and his customers were his highest priority. He missed the first 19 years of my life. He missed football and basketball games (I lettered in both and in track), my lead part in the high school musical (twice), my graduation from high school, and almost anything else where he would have had to leave his business to attend. I resented this and him for a very long time. And it wasn’t until I had the opportunity to work with him that I came to know and appreciate him.  

I knew that he loved me, and I knew that he was working hard because he felt responsible for the welfare of his family. We always had food on the table and a safe place to live but there wasn’t money for extras. I also resented this for much of my early life.

Before I get too deep into this, I should state that keeping my work and my life balanced has been a challenge for me throughout my life. I don’t know if it is generational or if I was ruined by my father’s example, but my work, what I do, and how well I do play an important role in who I am, and I don’t think that I have been able to separate the two completely. So much of who I am has been shaped by my experiences over the past 65 years, a large portion of which were work-related.

I have a few tips that will help you as you try to keep your life balanced.

• Keep a calendar and schedule time for work, yourself, and home. If you don’t schedule the time, you will find that you don’t have the time. Fires at the business will push out the things that are important, especially time with your family. There will always be things demanding your attention and competing with the important things in your life. Scheduling time for family and having a regular work schedule will help you fit the things that matter into the time you have.  
  
  In my experience, seemingly important fires can derail your personal and family time unless you refuse to allow them to. Having a regular schedule helps you to prioritize what is important in your life and hold yourself to some rules. I have also found that whatever seems so important in the moment will still be there tomorrow. For most things, waiting until you can fit it into your scheduled time will not mean the difference between success and failure.  
• When you are at work be at work; when you are at home be at home. I spent many years working more than 1,200 miles from where my family and I lived or traveling for my job. During that time, one of the most important decisions I made was to make sure that when I was home, I was home and when I was at work, I was at work. I missed a lot of ball games, concerts, and other events with my family, but when I was home, I was 100% there.
  
  This gave me better focus both at work and at home. If your work requires travel or long hours, make the distinction between the two worlds deliberate. When you are with your family, give them your attention rather than continuing to mentally run the business.    
  
  
• Find out what your family is interested in, and be interested in it. I have four children and my two boys each performed in bands so I built a music studio in my basement so that they would be home and not somewhere else. When my oldest son was 14 or 15, it seemed to me that we didn’t have anything in common, and I felt I was losing him. After many months of worry, I noticed that he liked to go fishing with his friends. I dragged him to Sportsman’s Warehouse one Saturday and set us both up with fishing supplies. Then I asked him if he would teach me to fish.  
  
  I didn’t need him to teach me to fish. I needed time with him where we could talk and share our lives and, and when you are fishing, there is little else to do. We spent many evenings out fishing when I was in town, and today, we have a great relationship.
  
  You don’t need to take up fishing. But you should find something your family cares about and be willing to enter their world.
  
  
• Understand your priorities. I have a few rules for my life that help me to be a well-rounded person, and one of those is understanding my priorities.  
  • My relationship with myself. I must like myself. I need to have a relationship with myself, get rid of baggage, like the person I am, and be comfortable with what I am doing.
  • My relationship with my maker. Whatever you believe, it is important to feel good about your relationship with the universe and your maker.
  • My relationship with my family. My family needs my love and care. My relationship with my wife and my children needs to be good. Sometimes this is very difficult, but this is important to me.
  • My relationships with good friends. I need to have some good friends that I can share my experiences with—people who care about me and who I care about.  
  • My work and relationships with clients. If I like myself, feel good about where I am with my maker, and have good relationships with my family and friends, I can give much more to my clients and my work.
  • My relationships with the rest of the world. Politics and community are important to me. I make sure to dedicate time to people and topics that are important to me. If there isn’t enough time for myself, my relationship with my maker, my family and friends, then there is no time for community and politics. 
• Set aside time regularly to think and ponder. I need to have the time to reevaluate my priorities and actions in relation to what I want my life to be so I can modify my results. Regularly stepping back to evaluate what you want and whether your priorities reflect it can help you keep your life in line with those goals.
  
  
• Only make emergencies actual emergencies. Many people will make things bigger than they need to be and have a difficult time keeping perspective. I have seen business owners who lose it if a mistake happens on a vehicle. Mistakes happen. You cannot live your life or run your business without mistakes. These are not emergencies but opportunities for improvement, if you have the time and perspective to recognize them. 
  
  When we believe that little things are emergencies, we often blow things up and create more problems, say things we shouldn’t, and act in ways we shouldn’t. If we can keep things in perspective, our lives and the lives of those we regularly interact with will be better.

My father got pneumonia at 73, a couple of years after he retired and spent more than three months in a hospital on a respirator for much of that time. A week before he passed, I met with him and asked him if we were OK. We had worked together for some time; I left and started my own business. He wasn’t there when I was a kid and we had a complicated relationship. I loved him and he loved me, but father-son relationships are hard and so I asked him if we were OK.  He wrote on a pad that we were, then he wrote another couple of words that broke my heart.  He wrote, “I’m sorry.”  

He wasn’t sorry that he didn’t leave me more money, or that he yelled at me a few times, or that we sometimes struggled to communicate. He was sorry for all the ball games, music concerts, graduations, and other moments he missed with me and that he didn’t have any left. I told him that he was a great father and that he did the best he could with what he had and that I loved him.

He passed a few days later and I miss him every day.

Don’t wait until you have no time left to set your priorities. Like yourself. Come to terms with the universe and your maker. Build relationships. Get to know your children and family.  

Problems will still be there tomorrow when you return to work, or there will be other problems.  Don’t let that keep you from going home, attending your kids’ games, recitals, or concerts because there is one thing that you cannot get back after it is gone—time.